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Crenshaw County was established after the American Civil War on November 30, 1866, by the Reconstruction era legislature. It was formed from parts of Butler, Coffee, Covington, Pike and Lowndes counties. It's named for Hon. Anderson Crenshaw. While part of the coastal area, this county had relatively infertile soils, limiting cotton and other agriculture. Its planters used slaves for all needed types of labor. Many of their descendants stayed in the area, and nearly one-quarter of the county population is black.
Crenshaw County became a center of timbering in the Piney Wood region, especially after the Montgomery and Florida Railroad Company constructed a line through the county in 1886. This provided transport to markets for timber. It connected with Sprague Junction in Montgomery County, Alabama. The timber camps were rough work areas where racial tensions sometimes flared.